Clintons Among World Leaders at Funeral for Havel in Prague

Prague Castle guards hold flags before the beginning of the ceremony of the state funeral of former Czech President Vaclav Havel at St. Vitus Cathedral on Dec. 23, 2011 in Prague, Czech Republic. Photographer: Carsten Koall/Getty Images

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Czech former President Vaclav Havel,
whose resistance to totalitarian regimes helped topple Communism
in 1989, was remembered at a mass attended by world leaders,
including David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Bill and Hillary
Clinton.

Bells tolled across the Czech Republic at noon as citizens
paused to observe a minute of silence for Havel, a dissident
playwright who died in his sleep on Dec. 18 at the age of 75
after a long illness. Thousands began gathering before sunrise
in a light drizzle at Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral inside
Hradcany Castle.

Havel’s widow, Dagmar Havlova, clad in a black veil, was
seated next to Czech President Vaclav Klaus and Havel’s brother,
Ivan, in the front pew as the Czech National Philharmonic played
selections from Antonin Dvorak’s Requiem and Handel’s Messiah. A
message from Pope Benedict XVI was read as hundreds who weren’t
able to be seated in the church, the country’s largest, watched
on large plasma screens outside.

“He breathed new life, not only into this country, but
also deeply into the roots of the tradition of humanism,”
Madeleine Albright, the Czech-born former U.S. Secretary of
State, told the packed cathedral in Czech. “He reminded us of
what we should be concerned with. He was one of the most-respected men on the planet in the 20th century. Still, he was
never satisfied that he did all he could do.”

Period of Mourning

The largest state funeral in decades caps a three-day
period of mourning in the country of 10 million. People waited
for hours to view Havel’s plain wooden casket covered in the
Czech tri-colored flag in the Vladislav Hall inside the castle
grounds before it was moved to the Gothic cathedral earlier
today.

Havel was president for almost 13 years, first as head of
Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic after the peaceful
split of the country with Slovakia in 1993. He counted figures
including Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa, who was present for
today’s funeral, as friends.

A chain smoker until the mid-1990s, Havel had a history of
lung problems dating back to his time in prison, where he didn’t
receive proper treatment. He suffered repeated bouts of
bronchitis and pneumonia and underwent an operation in December
1996 that removed a small malignant tumor along with a part of
his lung.

Philosopher-President

As one of history’s only philosopher-presidents who also
loved the theater of the absurd, he sought to educate his fellow
citizens in speeches and regular radio addresses about how a
democracy was supposed to function.

“I came because I am a veteran from Narodni Trida where it
all started in 1989,” said Jiri Cerny, an economist from
Prague, referring to a confrontation with police that sparked
the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. “I came to honor and
thank the man who became a moral authority and whose reputation
stretches far beyond the Czech Republic. This is the symbolic
end of what happened in 1989.”

Havel’s remains were taken following the ceremony to a
crematorium for a private ceremony and will be interred along
with first wife, Olga, and family relatives in the Vinohradsky
cemetery in a suburb of Prague, not far from the grave of writer
Franz Kafka.

Celebration Planned

In the evening, Havel’s friends are planning a celebration
in Prague’s Lucerna Hall, where many of the ex-president’s
favorite musicians and actors may appear, including singer
Suzanne Vega and the Plastic People of the Universe, the band
that Havel championed in the 1970s and ultimately served time in
jail for defending.

“Europe owes Vaclav Havel a profound debt,” Cameron said
before departing from London. “Havel led the Czech people out
of tyranny ... and he helped bring freedom and democracy to our
entire continent.”

While his official authority as president was limited by
the Czech constitution, Havel used the presidency as a platform
for building what he called a “civil society.”

In the years after the fall of communism in 1989, Havel’s
reputation and his ideas brought international renown to his new
country. He was a strong advocate for expansion of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. Under his
presidency, the Czech Republic became a NATO member in March
1999 and joined the EU in 2004.

“With the death of Vaclav Havel, a lot is leaving us, but
a lot remains with us because of his lifelong convictions,”
said Klaus during the Mass. Havel leaves the world with “the
thought that freedom is something we can lose when we don’t take
care of it enough, and that only democracy allows the freedom
for individuals and countries to live in prosperity and
spiritualism.”